>> booktv wants know your reading. send us your summer reading list via twitter at booktv or instagrammed at book understory tv.or posted to our facebook facebook.com/booktv booktv on c-span2, television for serious readers. >> chief david brown, what was the day like july 7, 2016, how did it start? >> started as a normal day in the chaotic world where you had scheduled protesters who had planned as part of a national protest day for a very large static protest event whether it would be at a park in the downtown. it is not unusual today. we had planned for it to be something that we would manage peacefully. we had strategically worked on

that process with our undercover police. we were pretty comfortable that morning that this would be a seamless event. people would express themselves but we would be navigating and guiding them in a peaceful way. >> how did it develop? >> it began as scheduled on time. there were scheduled speakers that express themselves. no different than what you hear and other protests across the country about police officers shooting unarmed black men. there was a shooting in

minnesota and baton rouge the day before and this was connected to the protests in new york, los angeles. all of the big cities experiencing similar protests and similar speeches. i was going to plan -- we were working on the relationship with the community for several years but it was our strategy to be successful with the community and policing the city. i am born and raised in dallas so this was something that you know, mid protest, even later into the protest i felt very comfortable with. that it was going to be a peaceful event. >> how long have you been chief at that point? >> i have been serving -- you see when that happens and

police or maybe not on top of their gimmick is out of hand. we were really focused on and i was really focused on this remaining peaceful. >> where were you when the shooter started? >> i left a minute before. i live just across from the police headquarters in a condo in downtown dallas. just a couple of miles away from the event. i had just told the second in command some but this is about to be over, peaceful. i'm going home. call me when the last protester gets in the car and drives off. so we want you to stay to the end to make sure no fights broke out as people walk to their cars.so i had taken off my gun belt and i get this call in my second in command. he is frantic and out of breath. i was a something and just hit the pavement. when he said to me made my

heart drop. it really did. >> what is the aftermath of an event like that? five policeman killed and one day?>> it is gut wrenching that you have to explain to widows and officers kids why this happened. and you have to do it many times on a national stage. you have to try to maintain that caring, intimacy that you convey the right message and the families are paying attention to when you are in television or radio or just interacting in the public. with how you are expressing how you feel about the sacrifice that their loved ones just made. so it was beyond painful having to stay composed, hold your grief beside and be strong for what had happened. >> in your new book "called to

rise: a life in faithful service to the community that made me" you talk about losing your partner early on in your police career.he almost left the force. >> yes. he and i became best friends in the police academy. we were batman and robin. it was a relationship that was built for the ages. and you know we envisioned moving up the ranks. we had plans and we enjoyed protecting the community. he had because he was older, he had a more mature thought process as it relates to policing. i would gain that later through my reflection on him in his words after he passed and was killed in a domestic violence incident in dallas. so, only upon reflection, does this tragedy make sense. at the time it made absolutely no sense, made me want to give up on police work and give up

on my faith. i was 28 years old when it happened. i do not understand how bad things happen to good people. to me that did not seem right with the world. and i wanted to give up. it was that gut wrenching. does policing work? >> yes, it makes it is a safe and police officer safer introduces crime more than any other approach. i have been on the opposite side of that and i have been persuaded to not, not just through data and results in citizen feedback. i have seen it make communities trust the police department. and perceive themselves as being safer. so all the perceptions of crime in the trust issues that we struggle with as a police force in our country. it is resolved through

community policing.community engagement. being in tune with what the community is expressing to you or the flaws of not only their neighborhood but of your officers. if you listen. >> what is the downside? >> the downside is the tradition of policing. the culture of policing. stubborn. they can see how putting them all in jail and letting god sort them out is not the best way to police. it is a reaction that somebody does something that violates the law, let's lock them up and now we are safer. the reality is that it is just untrue. it is counterintuitive. we have to segment out lower-level offenders, people who are drug addicted versus the truly violent person who needs to be locked up. if you lump them all together, your prisons become a revolving

door. of not only mental illness and drug addiction but of poverty and of people who have you know, been the result of maybe a poor environment of poor education system. all of the social ills, you criminalize and lump altogether and these people revolved in and out of our prisons and you have a cycle of crime that makes you less safe. >> in your new book, you talk about the effect of federal policies on cities such as yours in dallas. mass incarceration, and tougher crime laws. what do they do on the local level >> they make your neighborhoods dysfunctional. because it makes the family structure dysfunctional. if the family structure, that is the meaning of the neighborhood. of your city. and once you dysfunction that

through mass incarceration without any thoughts of the downstream effect of these folks who are incarcerated for low-level crimes. who might often need drug treatment or mental illness treatment and their children see the police as someone who mistreated their father. now the father is not in the home and the mother has to do everything and now the children on the street while she is at work. and begin to criminalize that behavior and now they are in the system. the father gets out but the kids are in the system. it is a cycle but for their lot in life in the social democratic of poverty and schools and all the usual suspects of dysfunctional in our society. the concept to resolve with handcuffs and a pistol.

that is not the tools of resolving these entrenched complex issues in our country and the cops often fail at that because the tools they have are just not acclimated for resolving those types of things. >> so when someone wonders alone rather racist cops are targeting unarmed black men, they skipped over mountains of issues to get to that one. but is that? >> they skip over the sacrifice that officers have made.how can you mention you know, as racists? particularly white tops yet you get white cops killed protecting protesters who are protesting white cops being you know, it just, it don't match. because there is something disconnected with our conversation. much of it is about listening and much of it is about really entrenched positions. and then you married these

positions with everyone not listening and we talked at each other. cops made the ultimate sacrifice for you regardless of your race. and then to have painted them with the broad brush of racist cops is not right. and many of our mothers taught us this. it is really part of the prescription of resolving some of the divide that we have with police and community. that if you want something done right, do it yourself. and that do-it-yourself is put down a protest sign, put in an application. we need more people of color in law enforcement to help us bridge the gap between policing and community. we need it. i have a friend that said it will not be resolved until his skin in the game from all sides.

including police participating more in the local democracy. the six percent or 10 percent of the population at both.you cannot make significant changes just protesting. we have people not participating in the local democracy bid there will not be a significant change. you have to get in the game. >> what is a racial breakdown of the dallas police department? >> for the first time before i retired october last year we are a majority minority department. 51 percent. hard-fought to get that balance because particularly for millennial's. today a millennial of color, policing is not preferred profession. it is not. what you see on television is not something you want to be part of. because it is painted in a very negative light with these viral videos. some of it quite earned. many police involved shootings i've seen really describe what

i know internally most cops know this. everyone is not suited to be a cop.there is a percentage of people who just can't react under pressure. they should be weeded out of the profession we all know that. not just citizens know this, cops know this. it will not significantly change until the protester becomes part of the solution. much more engaged beyond protests, much more in participation. that is the recipe. >> i want to ask about two people that appear in your book. who is dj? >> my son. 28 years old who suffered unbeknownst to the family, from onset, adult onset of bipolar. and self-medicating with marijuana and self-medicating with marijuana laced with pcp. and he, in a mental episode, while i was at church, killed

not only an innocent citizen but a suburban cop in the dallas area.

>> l or people who are so entranced in belief who are greasers with them is the enemy. i have hope for that. my hope for all of this is boy out of that deepest despair what i describe in the book that keeps me going gives me sense of urgency it's why i retired. i retired on top accolades -- that's not why you go into public service to receive that. you go into public service to

serve people not to be self-served. so next phase of my life is pointed toward bringing people together mental health and policy and funding and policy and funding police reform and funding necessary to make it happen and reconciling our differences and our using this platform, this abc news as well as contributor to just spring forward, resolving -- our wounds around race. around police and around differences in our political system that just cannot sustain itself it in the way it's going. it's got to be something that bridges what is divided. i hope to be a person that pays sm s